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When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?

When I was ten through when I was twelve, I used to travel to see extended family multiple times a year, flying across the U.S. to do it. I owned Graceling, and a collection of other YA fantasy books, on Kindle. I would reread this book every single time I flew because it meant so much to me. This is one of my most reread books of all time, and it was such a big influence on both what I write and what I love to read, and I love and appreciate it more every time.

Graceling opens as Katsa, a character graced with the skill to kill people—literally, actually murder them—puts a group of guards out cold rather than killing them while trying to rescue a falsely imprisoned old man. She then returns to her palace, where she is thought of and treated as a weapon for a cruel king. She thinks of herself as a dog, and a brute, and an idiot, until she and a new friend move to track down the answers to a mystery dogging a nearby kingdom.

Katsa prizes her mind: it is the only she has ever had to herself. One of the first things we learn of her is her hatred for mind readers, and while this serves a plot purpose, it also ties in well with her other fears: Her body and power has for so long been Randa’s, as a weapon. But she is not a weapon. Though Katsa could, and would, kill the bad guy to survive a horror movie, she also does the right thing, or tries. She cares for other people, in her own stubborn and angry way. To move anywhere beyond her own self-image, she must go from thinking of herself as a killer, a monster, a weapon, to thinking of herself as a justice-seeker. She must find love (Po), and allow herself to care for those around her (Bitterblue). And she must go from thinking of her talent as a curse to thinking of it as a tool. The graces are a neutral element—both good and bad, depending on their use.

The thing about the climax of Katsa's character arc is that it isn’t defined by violence: it’s defined by Katsa regaining power over her mind.
SPOILER: (view spoiler)[It isn’t a great feat that she kills; we know all along that she can kill anyone she wants. It is the fact that she kills someone as he tries to control her mind that is so important. Her conflict is never about her physical power but about her love for Bitterblue and Po. And she wrests back mental control not through her grace, but through her love for other people. (hide spoiler)]

It’s a bit of a subversion of the chosen one narrative, because though her power saves her many times along the way, in the final moment, it isn’t her grace that saves her but her mental strength. Herself.

Katsa is a genuinely funny narrator, who causes problems on purpose, and has absolutely no people skills except when she tries really, really hard. I think traits like this can be frustrating in a narrative because so often they're used as lazy plot devices. Katsa’s badness with people is never a plot device, never something we see her as stupid for. She’s just hilarious.

“Wonderful,� Po said. “It's quite boring really, the way you beat me to death with your hands and feet, Katsa. It'll be refreshing to have you come at me with a knife.�

� The romance is pitch-perfect. Some of you may know that I'm a bit picky around romance plots, but Katsa and Po are... frankly the book couple. Their interactions are hilarious; Po is a genuinely good guy, rather than being a Tough Scary Bad Dude, and he's a dynamic character on his own.

Cashore also does so well by all her side characters. Bitterblue is an entertaining and dynamic character, and in fact, she gets her own book later on. Po, Raffin, and Giddon are all incredibly vivid characters [and they all get more later]. It's kind of incredible how human all of these characters are, how they never feel like plot devices.

� I love an engaging narrative. I think the plot is really interesting - it's not exactly twisty, but you never jump ahead of the characters in what you figure out - and although much of the book is spent on a journey, there's so much character and relationship building that I never got bored. (I have literally read this book, what, over twenty times?) I also love Cashore's writing; it feels so classic fantasy in a good way? God. Fucking love it.

The Graceling series also contains a character who I consider to this day to be one of the most genuinely terrifying villains in the YA canon. His presence stalks all three books of this series in different ways—in one after he’s dead—but he never ceases to terrify me.

� This book features a genuinely strong and developed gender non-conforming woman as a protagonist, who does not get married, with a really great lady friendship at its heart. I would love if people would stop being upset by the first two of those points.

To be quite honest, the fact that some reviewers have decided Katsa not being feminine is a problem rubs me the wrong way. I love that you lend your support to feminine heroines, but identifying having any women who don’t conform to femininity as “the not like other girls trope� is actually just misogynistic. It’s also not an accurate view of what that trope is. First of all, not-like-other-girls is meant to denote heroines who actively shit on feminine women (which does not happen in this book).

But more importantly, I hate so much that literature for women is a double-bind: you have to be feminine, but also hate femininity and those who express it. Katsa is genuinely not feminine-presenting. . Gender non-conforming women are not taking over your literature; feminine women who also hate femininity are.

“But no amount of humility or respect made it any less horrifying to lose control.�

Katsa, as a character, does not want to get married. She specifically does not want marriage, as stated in the text, because any freedom Po could give her would be just that: given. She’s a character who is terrified to cede control of herself to someone, not when she has just escaped that, and the narrative—and her lover—don’t force her to do so.

I have seen far too many people complain about this book's “raging feminist agenda�. Okay? A woman makes choices that are realistic to her character? Deeply lukewarm take.

� On a side note, remember in like, 2010, when YA was a hellscape and you had to like, beg for just one side character of color? Let me run this book, published in 2008, down for you: gnc woman helps save a biracial woman of color from persecution while falling in love with disabled man of color because he recognizes that she will always feel the need to be the strong one. [I will also note that after getting criticism for the use of a slightly ableist trope surrounding one blind character, she apologized in her author's note and improved his treatment in later books.] Book two: bi black woman, survivor of abuse and rape, falls in love with black man because he's good to her and treats her like a person rather than a possession. Book three: biracial woman dealing with ptsd tries to rule a kingdom while falling in love with a bi man of color and also, fighting for a return to her old culture and to freedom of the press with the assistance of her many gay friends [including three side characters from this book and two lesbians who run a print shop].

� Oddly, one of my favorite parts of this series is how different and awesome each book is . Graceling is an action-adventure story about redemption and self-hatred. Fire is a political story about agency, rape culture, and abusive relationships, both domestic and parental. Bitterblue is a slow-burn mystery, character study, and bildungsroman about a nation growing up and letting go, all wrapped in one. All three of these books are executed so well that your favorite will depend mostly on what themes touch you the most. For me, Graceling and Bitterblue [which I reviewed here hey hey hey] are the standouts to me personally, but they're honestly all great. The love I have for this series is so neverending.

In summary: this book honestly still has me by the throat in 2020, and is one of my favorite books of all time, and I wish that we could pay it its dues.

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